Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

BEST SELLERS: May 6, 1990

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems.
Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

$ Weeks This Last On Week Week List Fiction 1 1 3 SEPTEMBER, by Rosamunde Pilcher. (St. Martin's, $22.95.) Guests from many parts of the world encounter their often unexpected destinies during a get-together in a small Scottish town. 2 2 8 THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, by Robert Ludlum. (Random House, $21.95.) Jason Bourne plans to infiltrate the ruthless Medusa Brigade. 3 3 11 OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO! by Dr. Seuss. (Random House, $12.95.) The problems of finding your way through life; in verse and pictures. 4 4 3 SKINNY LEGS AND ALL, by Tom Robbins. (Bantam, $19.95.) The horror and humor of the upcoming apocalypse are played out at a restaurant near the United Nations. 5 5 5 MASQUERADE, by Janet Dailey. (Little, Brown, $19.95.) A New Orleans heiress encounters a masked man during a carnival in Nice. 6 6 4 THE EVENING NEWS, by Arthur Hailey. (Doubleday, $21.95.) Life as lived by two competitive television correspondents. 7 7 36 CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, by Tom Clancy. (Putnam, $21.95.) The C.I.A.'s Jack Ryan fights Colombian drug lords. 8 1 ''G'' IS FOR GUMSHOE, by Sue Grafton. (Holt, $16.95.) On her 33d birthday, the private eye Kinsey Millhone finds herself on the hit list of a killer she once tracked down. 9 14 2 THE GOLD COAST, by Nelson DeMille. (Warner, $19.95.) How life changes for an old WASP family when the head of a crime family becomes its neighbor on Long Island's North Shore. 10 9 15 DEVICES AND DESIRES, by P. D. James. (Knopf, $19.95.) A series of killings on the Norfolk coast. 11 11 3 BRIGHT STAR, by Harold Coyle. (Simon & Schuster, $19.95.) An attempted assassination by a Libyan terrorist brings American and Soviet troops into a violent encounter. 12 12 10 BITTER SWEET, by LaVyrle Spencer. (Putnam, $18.95.) A widow's ordeal after meeting her high school flame, now a less than happily married man. 13 10 15 THE BAD PLACE, by Dean R. Koontz. (Putnam, $19.95.) A troubled sleepwalker hires a detective team to investigate his behavior. 14 * 8 9 THE SCIONS OF SHANNARA, by Terry Brooks. (Del Rey/Ballantine, $19.95.) The adventures of two brothers who practice magic in a fantasy land. 15 2 COLLECTED STORIES OF WALLACE STEGNER. (Random House, $21.95.) Thirty-one short works by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner. Weeks This Last On Week Week List Nonfiction 1 1 4 MEN AT WORK, by George F. Will. (Macmillan, $19.95.) The political pundit and baseball buff describes the craft of the game as practiced by three players and a manager. 2 3 15 MEGATRENDS 2000, by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene. (Morrow, $21.95.) Prognostications about political, economic and social developments in the next decade. 3 14 13 HEAD FIRST, by Norman Cousins. (Dutton, $19.95.) How the brain affects the body's endocrine and immune systems. 4 4 15 BARBARIANS AT THE GATE, by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. (Harper & Row, $22.95.) The 1988 battle for control of RJR Nabisco. 5 2 7 MEANS OF ASCENT, by Robert A. Caro. (Knopf, $24.95.) Lyndon Johnson's seven-year pursuit of a seat in the Senate, won in 1948 by 87 votes. 6 6 33 IT WAS ON FIRE WHEN I LAY DOWN ON IT, by Robert Fulghum. (Villard, $17.95.) A new collection of inspirational essays. 7 5 26 LIAR'S POKER, by Michael Lewis. (Norton, $19.95.) Wall Street's tumultuous 1980's, as witnessed and participated in by a young bond trader. 8 11 2 IN THE ARENA, by Richard Nixon. (Simon & Schuster, $21.95.) The 37th President reflects on his public career and private life. 9 9 8 PARTING WITH ILLUSIONS, by Vladimir Pozner. (Atlantic Monthly, $19.95.) The autobiography of a man, raised in New York, who became a commentator on Radio Moscow. 10 1 LEGACIES, by Bette Bao Lord. (Knopf, $19.95.) Reflections on the Chinese experience during the past quarter-century by a writer who was born in China, raised in America. 11 10 107 A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, by Stephen W. Hawking. (Bantam, $18.95.) A scientist reviews efforts to create a unified theory of the universe. 12 13 14 THE CUCKOO'S EGG, by Clifford Stoll. (Doubleday, $19.95.) An astrophysicist tells how he stalked a computer hacker. 13 * 8 11 WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION, by Peggy Noonan. (Random House, $19.95.) The memoirs of a former Presidential speechwriter. 14 1 THE BROKEN CORD, by Michael Dorris. (Harper & Row, $18.95.) The struggle of a family to cope with the fetal alcohol syndrome of an adopted son. 15 1 FLASHBACKS, by Morley Safer. (Random House, $18.95.) The observations of a journalist on revisiting Vietnam 25 years later. Weeks This Last On Week Week List Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous 1 2 64 WEALTH WITHOUT RISK, by Charles J. Givens. (Simon & Schuster, $19.95.) A Florida entrepreneur's financial advice. 2 1 21 THE GREAT WALDO SEARCH, by Martin Handford. (Little, Brown, $10.95.) A book of illustrations in which the game is to find a ubiquitous chap named Waldo. 3 3 10 SECRETS ABOUT MEN EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW, by Barbara De Angelis. (Delacorte, $17.95.) Ways by which women can improve their relationships with men. 4 4 11 BEWARE THE NAKED MAN WHO OFFERS YOU HIS SHIRT, by Harvey Mackay. (Morrow, $19.95.) Advice on how to get ahead in business. 5 2 THE BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS NEW COOKBOOK. (Meredith, $19.95.) A ring-bound version of the 10th edition.

These listings are based on computer-processed sales figures from 3,000 bookstores and from representative wholesalers with more than 28,000 other retail outlets, including variety stores and supermarkets. The figures are statistically adjusted to represent sales in all such outlets across the United States.

*An asterisk before a book's title indicates that its sales, weighted to reflect the book-selling industry nationally, are barely distinguishable from those of the book above.

AND BEAR IN MIND

(Editors' choices of other recent books of particular interest)

ALL THE BEST: Letters From a Feisty Mayor, by Edward I. Koch with Leland T. Jones. (Simon & Schuster, $19.95.) The selected combative correspondence of New York's three-term Mayor shows why so many people liked him, and why so many didn't.

ONE, BY ONE, BY ONE: Facing the Holocaust, by Judith Miller. (Simon & Schuster, $21.95.) A reporter and editor for The Times examines the ways five European countries and the United States have distorted and manipulated the memory of the Holocaust.

TITMUSS REGAINED, by John Mortimer. (Viking, $19.95.) Mr. Mortimer's splendid classical comedy of political manners in an English village paints all participants as greedy ninnies, most notably the title character, a politically prominent twerp.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

THE BOY WHO WOULD BE A HELICOPTER, by Vivian Gussin Paley. (Harvard University, $19.95.) An original essay on the practice of teaching young children, using their own stories as a vehicle of instruction, by a University of Chicago master teacher.

THE FALL OF PAN AM 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, by Steven Emerson and Brian Duffy. (Putnam, $21.95.) Two professional journalists have constructed a surpassing account of the 1988 bombing, rich both in drama and in anecdotal details.

PLAYING WITH WATER: Passion and Solitude on a Philippine Island, by James Hamilton-Paterson. (New Amsterdam Books, Cloth, $19.95; Paper, $11.95.) A truly remarkable lyrical meditation on sea, sunlight and the analysis of consciousness.

THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW, by Marian Eldridge. (University of Queensland/International Specialized Book Services, Paper, $12.95.) Sixteen short stories, set in Australia with side trips, elegantly shaped and alive with narrative brilliance.

A version of this list appears in print on May 6, 1990, on Page 7007036 of the National edition with the headline: BEST SELLERS: May 6, 1990. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe